Associations of Patient Experience in Primary Care With Hospitalizations and Emergency Department Visits on Isolated Islands: A Prospective Cohort Study

Purpose In rural areas, the management of hospitalizations and emergency department (ED) visits is an important issue, and it is compounded by factors such as the long distance to secondary care facilities, funding difficulties in many rural medical institutions, and shortage of medical staff. While better patient experience (PX) has been shown to reduce hospitalizations and ED visits, previous studies have not considered the differences between urban and rural areas. In addressing this gap, this study examines the association between PX and hospitalizations/ED visits on isolated islands. Methods This prospective cohort study was conducted on 5 isolated islands in Okinawa, Japan. We assessed the PX of primary care using the Japanese version of the Primary Care Assessment Tool (JPCAT), which comprises 6 domains: first contact, longitudinality, coordination, comprehensiveness (services available), comprehensiveness (services provided), and community orientation. The primary outcome was hospitalizations and ED visits in a year. We used a mixed effect model to adjust clustering within islands and individual covariates. Findings Of 1,258 residents, 740 responded to a questionnaire for PX measurement. There were 73 hospitalizations and 62 ED visits. Adjusting for confounding and geographical clustering, hospitalizations had significant positive association with the PX score of each patient. ED visits were not associated with the total score of the JPCAT. Conclusion On the isolated islands, PX in primary care had positive correlation with hospitalizations. The contrast of our findings to those of previous studies may be due to the close patient-doctor relationship on isolated islands.